Agenda - Planning Commission - 04/06/2017

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Zoning Bulletin March 10, 2017 I Volume 11 I Issue 5 religious applicants that had the same effect on the Parking Ordinance's policy for provision off-street parking in order to prove violation of RLU- IPA's Nondiscrimination Provision. (In any case, the court said that even if ISBR had to point to similarly situated comparators in order to show that the Planning Board's application of the Parking Ordinance violated RLUIPA's Nondiscrimination Provision, it could show that a Jewish con- gregation, Jewish center, and Baptist church were all similarly situated and had received site plan approval from the Planning Board in accor- dance with the Parking Ordinance's 3:1 ratio.) Finally, the court concluded that the Planning Board discriminatorily applied the Parking Ordinance on the basis of religion when it applied the 3:1 parking ratio to Christian churches and Jewish synagogues but not to Muslim mosques. The Plan- ning Board had claimed that disparate application was based on legiti- mate differences in parking needs, and not on religion, but the court rejected that argument. The court said it would not consider the Planning. Board's proffered justification for its discriminatory application of the Parking Ordinance because a strict liability (rather than a strict scrutiny) standard applied to RLUIPA's Nondiscrimination Provision. The court also held that the language in the Parking Ordinance that al- lowed the Planning Board discretion to require parking spaces in excess of the 3:1 ratio based on presented "documentation and testimony" was unconstitutionally vague on its face in violation of the Due Process Clauses of the federal and state constitutions. The court explained that to establish that a law is impermissibly vague under the Federal and New Jersey Constitutions, the law: (1) must fail to "give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly"; or (2) "if arbitrary and discriminatory enforce- ment is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them." Here, the court found that the Parking Ordinance al- lowed the Planning Board "to require additional parking spaces without having to abide by any specific guidelines as to what constitutes sufficient off-street parking." The court concluded that language "unambiguously" provided the Planning Board with "unbridled and unconstitutional discretion." See also: Hassan v. City of New York, 804 E3d 277 (3d Cir 2015). See also: Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism, Inc. v. City of Long Branch, 510 E3d 253,269 (3d Cir 2007). See also: Fowler v. State of R.I., 345 U.S. 67, 73 S. Ct. 526, 97 L. Ed. 828 (1953). ©' 2017 Thomson Reuters 11